The sun wasn’t even up when Aaron Gray of Prestatyn, Wales, heard his young son asking for a drink at 5 a.m.
The former soldier of the Royal Welsh Army wearily got up and poured his son a glass of milk. As he was returning to bed, he noticed a sliver of bright orange light coming through his window blinds. When he looked outside, he saw a terrifying sight.
The house next door was engulfed in flames. Panicked, Aaron rushed to get dressed and call for help. “I put my clothes on, ran round, whilst phoning the fire service,” he said.
It was 5:08 when Aaron placed that call. By 5:22 the entire roof had caught on fire, and the house was worryingly close to collapse. Aaron ran outside and began to pound on the windows and doors of the burning home, frantically trying to rouse his sleeping neighbors.
Inside the house, Shauna Cox was sleeping with her three children. She also had a friend over who was spending the night with her two kids. They had no idea their lives were at risk until Aaron kicked down their front door.
“I was kicking the door, punching the door, banging the windows, screaming through the letter box – everything,” Aaron said.
Shauna was sleeping soundly when she finally woke up to see flames crawling across the ceiling above her bed.
“Weekend just gone has been the worst experience of my entire life!!” she wrote on Facebook. “Never had I thought I’d be woken up to see my ceiling above my bed in flames with my children sleeping beside me. Me and my friend went to sleep to be woken to my front door being kicked in to alert us of the situation my entire roof was alight!”
The moms grabbed their kids and ran out the back door, where Aaron was waiting to help lift the children over the garden fence where it was safer. He got everyone evacuated just in the nick of time. By 6 a.m. the entire house was engulfed in flames. “If I’d left it five minutes later, as the fire service said, I think we’d be looking at a different outcome,” Aaron explained.
Fire officials believe the blaze started in an incinerator bin in the garden, which quickly spread to a bush before igniting the house. Shauna and her friend can’t thank Aaron enough for saving their lives.
“Everything I’ve ever owned has gone but I still have my children and that’s the only thing that matters to me right now,” the grateful mom wrote.
Aaron is a true hero! He didn’t hesitate once before rushing into a burning building to save a group of strangers. We’re so glad his son woke him up that fateful morning!
Share this story to recognize Aaron for his courage.
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